The Journal (Star Trek: TOS story by Carolyn Spencer)

Fanfiction
Title:	The Journal
Author(s):	Carolyn Spencer
Date(s):	1992
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
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The Journal is a K/S story by Carolyn Spencer.

first page of the handwritten story "The Journal"

It was published in the print zine First Time #33.

Summary

"Spock ends up in 1885 with the Jim Kirk of that time, an ancestor of his bond-mate."

Reactions and Reviews

1992

Very well done, interesting story. I only hope the diary doesn't distort any time lines, but like its writer, this isn't a story I'm likely to forget soon.

Spock lost his memory by a time accident and finds himself in America back in the 1885. He meets James J. Kirk, who thinks he is an Indian and who tends his wounds. The story is written as a diary. James Kirk is a simple man,earthy and robust, he speaks and writes what he thinks, without respect for good manners, grammar or right spelling. It's a real treat to read this! I love the handwriting very much! It makes the illusion perfect (the journal looks like the letters I usually write, with all the crossed words, the ink-spots and the fingerprints...)! I was downright waiting to find fresh leaves, bugs or some mud between the pages! That thing with the stump was great: Kirk says, that damn thing ain't never moving till Judgement Day and Spock simply mulls it out! And the momma bear - terrific, how Kirk tells this! Very touching the love between Kirk and Spock. Spock loves his Jim (his Bondmate - the Captain), but he has enough love to help this Jim to overcome his grief. He isn't disloyal to his bondmate, because he makes love to this man. he acts rather like a doctor for the soul. It's a brotherly love between them, though they have sex. And you can see that Spock's destiny is Kirk - no difference in what time he meets him! This is a very unusual story, which I love very much!

I love this tale. Really inspired. Deeply moving; stayed with me a long time. A very strong mood created by the POV and having basically only the two characters. So little else intruded, except a nice sense of time and place, but I couldn't quite feel Kirk in the Kirk character, because of the language. That was disappointing, because I really wanted to have that sense of a connection with our Kirk. I would assume this character was well thought out, and I do want to say I don't feel as strongly about these criticisms as I feel strongly about how much I loved the story. However, it seems he could have been made slightly more well spoken or literate (especially as he obviously enjoyed the art of writing) while still retaining the flavor of his character, circumstances and the tines. I know there is a "cowboy poet" type, but this character seemed incongruous. The crudeness and the poetry didn't seem to mesh: at least not in his writing. Also, he seemed to have some common prejudices ("Injuns") so did he too easily accept he could physically love "Sam?" His deepening feelings toward "Sam," however, felt very authentic. I loved this Spock very much; very well expressed through Kirk's words. Seems kind of an indulgence to have the story in handwriting just to be "authentic." But I liked it that way, being a journal-keeper myself.

There were certain inconsistencies in this journal written by an a/u backwoodsman Kirk. He always managed to spell the words in Spock's dialogue no matter how complex they were. There were also times when he used phrases that seemed a little too sophisticated for him. These instances jolted me out of that character's viewpoint, and it was difficult for me to get back into the story.

1993

Highly inventive and imaginative.this is a story as told by James J. Kirk, circa 1885 in Colorado. It is hand written in a journal by this Kirk and the typeface is done as if by hand, complete with misspellings, inkspots and mistakes. Somehow Spock is transported back in time to this place, has been injured and has lost his memory when Kirk finds him. Kirk lives alone out in his cabin in the wilderness and slowly his own story evolves as does his relationship with Spock.

Therein lies the problem with this story. Told exclusively from this Kirk's POV. we see Spock through his eyes and it's rather confusing. I'm not certain how he feels about Spock since it's all tied up with his grief over the death of his wife. I'm also not certain what Spock wants from this Kirk since it isn't his Kirk, no matter the resemblance. The most confusing scene, however, was when Spock offers himself sexually for Kirk. If this was done out of pity, out of need, out of love, I couldn't tell. It was so sudden and abrupt with absolutely no foreplay or kissing at all, that "it took on a very strange tone.

I am also confused about this Kirk. I understand that this isn't "our" Kirk, just an ancestor, so he doesn't necessarily act like his future descendant. But the character was underdeveloped then, as if we were supposed to know him. Spock was more fully realized, but I still had a hard time figuring out what he wanted from his Kirk. Spock leaves after an encounter with a mysterious Vulcan, leaving Kirk with a message that he (Kirk) will be happy again. That was a lovely idea and worked well for the ending of the story.

As I said in the beginning of this LOC, this story was definitely imaginative and held my interest with its unusual nature. Perhaps the use of a character who looks like Kirk but isn't, was part of the problem. But still another unexpected story from a gifted author.

What a lovely, poignant piece! "The Journal" is a series of handwritten journal entries by a "James J. Kirk" who looks exactly like "our" James Kirk, but lives in rural Colorado in 1885. He appears to be Kirk's ancestor, but could also be an alternate Kirk from another timeline. He lives alone; after four years he is still mourning the death of his wife and child. An injured person he takes to be an Indian appears at the edge of the forest and turns out to be Spock, who initially cant remember anything but the face and name of his Jim Kirk. The other Kirk nurses the amnesiac Spock back to health, and ultimately, Spock finds a way to offer healing to this Kirk also.

Spock is beautifully drawn in this piece, seen through the eyes of the other Jim Kirk: his alienness and his compassion are both evoked sharply, as is his love for "his" Kirk. I loved the characterization of the 1885 Jim Kirk, too. He's very much an innocent, and in that sense seems quite different from our Kirk. I found the interaction between him and Spock, the feelings he has for Spock, and the physical love scenes between them quite believable. I did wonder for a moment whether a heterosexual man from 1885 Colorado would have sex with another man so easily, without at least having considerations about it but I quickly shrugged the question off. This Kirk was characterized as a loving, truthful, no-nonsense person, and I really did buy his actions in the context of the story. He is as extraordinary a man in his time as our Kirk is in his.

The only quibble I have with this story is that the other Kirk's language feels a little contrived. It tries for an uneducated, backwoodsy feel, but calls undue attention to itself. For example: I'm not sure that someone would write "ifn" for "if," even "if he spoke that way. Also, Kirk seems to forget how to put verbs in the past tense in a few places, but elsewhere does them correctly. I found those shifts distracting. I appreciate that it's very hard to write in a dialect or accent that is not native to the writer. Even if ifs a kind of speech you know well, it takes a very deft hand to convince readers. (Mark Twain did it well, and Alice Walker in The Color Purple, but this is something many pros have failed at.)

Unfortunately, the affected language meant that I kept having to remind myself that this fellow was identical to "our" Kirk, because I didn't hear our Kirk's voice in my head as I read. The story would be even more poignant, I think, if the author had written it in simple American English (the handwriting could remain and so could the ink splotches!). Seeing and hearing this Kirk as identical to ours would give every event in the story far more emotional impact.

Still, the story has plenty of emotional impact as it is, and in the end even the distracting language can't break the compelling mood. I've already read 'The Journal" twice, and I'm sure this is one I'll reread many times. This story alone was worth the price of the zine.

1999

I was just putting a zine away today and happened to pull FT33 out and I couldn't resist sitting right down and re-reading this story...and I'm still wiping my eyes and choked up inside as I write this. What an extraordinary story, and one of Carolyn's first. This was one of the first K/S zines I ever read, and I was blown away by this story then. I am perhaps even more so right now.

What an accomplishment, to draw us into this 1800's rural Colorado James Kirk via his handwritten journal, in so few and simple words to paint such a vivid picture of this lonely man and the strange visitor who comes to him one day in a sparkling beam of light.

Kirk is a simple man with little book-learning, with simple but deep feelings he struggles to express as the pointed-eared visitor (must be an Indian) opens up his heart again after he'd lost his wife and child years before. The visitor had been injured; he remembers little except "Jim." So Kirk names him Sam. All the small ways that Sam starts to touch Kirk's feelings are so heartful...and especially gorgeous is the way Kirk starts to respond to him sexually. We might have ideas about a rough country man in the 1800's, but this sexual response between them is written so convincingly. The small intimacies that precede the sexual are, of course, every bit as erotic in a character like this.

This is written in Kirk's POV only, and still gives us a clear enough picture of our Spock without all his memories. Obviously he came here by accident, separated from his own Kirk. Oh, it's just beautiful, all of it. The beauty is in each and every word of this journal, in each and every day of the weeks they spend together; so you need to just read it yourself. And the sad-happy ending....

I'm so glad I chanced upon this again. And the innocence of it took me back to my own K/S innocence.